diff --git a/mlir/lib/Dialect/Linalg/IR/LinalgInterfaces.cpp b/mlir/lib/Dialect/Linalg/IR/LinalgInterfaces.cpp
index caf9cdb3a3eb4..91165ddeb8887 100644
--- a/mlir/lib/Dialect/Linalg/IR/LinalgInterfaces.cpp
+++ b/mlir/lib/Dialect/Linalg/IR/LinalgInterfaces.cpp
@@ -281,6 +281,12 @@ bool mlir::linalg::detail::isContractionBody(
 
   Value yielded = getSourceSkipUnary(terminator->getOperand(0));
   Operation *reductionOp = yielded.getDefiningOp();
+
+  if (!reductionOp) {
+    errs << "expected reduction op in body";
+    return false;
+  }
+
   if (reductionOp->getNumResults() != 1 || reductionOp->getNumOperands() != 2) {
     errs << "expected reduction op to be binary";
     return false;
diff --git a/mlir/test/Dialect/Linalg/specialize-generic-ops-fail.mlir b/mlir/test/Dialect/Linalg/specialize-generic-ops-fail.mlir
index 542a7ed4a198b..3c5649fb63f62 100644
--- a/mlir/test/Dialect/Linalg/specialize-generic-ops-fail.mlir
+++ b/mlir/test/Dialect/Linalg/specialize-generic-ops-fail.mlir
@@ -14,3 +14,23 @@ func.func @transpose_and_broadcast(%arg0: tensor<7x8xf32>, %arg1: tensor<8x7x9xf
   } -> tensor<8x7x9xf32>
   return %0 : tensor<8x7x9xf32>
 }
+
+// -----
+
+#map = affine_map<(d0, d1, d2) -> (d0, d2)>
+#map1 = affine_map<(d0, d1, d2) -> (d1, d2)>
+#map2 = affine_map<(d0, d1, d2) -> (d0, d1)>
+// This tests checks that the pass does not crash when trying to specialize a 
+// contraction-like generic op with no reduction operation in its body.
+// CHECK-LABEL: @test_fake_contraction
+// CHECK: linalg.generic
+func.func @test_fake_contraction(%arg0: tensor<4x4xi32>) -> tensor<4x4xi32> {
+  %0 = tensor.empty() : tensor<4x4xi32>
+  %1 = linalg.generic 
+        {indexing_maps = [#map, #map1, #map2], iterator_types = ["parallel", "parallel", "reduction"]} 
+        ins(%arg0, %arg0 : tensor<4x4xi32>, tensor<4x4xi32>) outs(%0 : tensor<4x4xi32>) {
+        ^bb0(%in0: i32, %in1: i32, %out: i32):
+           linalg.yield %out : i32
+  } -> tensor<4x4xi32>
+  return %1 : tensor<4x4xi32>
+}